Topic: Arguing with one of my other IT friends about bitcoin... (Read 3440 times)
Hes confusing Megahertz with MegaHash ie. 400Mhash card vs 400Mhertz cpu etc. if he thinks a cpu can do that it kinda explains his point of view, though he would still be massively exaggerating.
Bitcoin is quite a big thing, is he aware of the whitepaper? Did he read it ? Not sure why he got hung up with magic the gathering stuff, that's kind of irrelevant to bitcoin, it's a bit like a car repair shop (mTgox) should be discredited because it was a restaurant (Magic the gathering exchange) there before serving asian dishes.
How much education do your friend have ?
One thing I find stupid is people holding beliefs that are just kind of made up just to fit their world view. If I wanted to talk extensively about anything, I sure as hell would make sure I knew A LOT about it, and did my research first. As it is, there's a few things I know a whole lot about, and many things I don't know a whole lot about. I don't speak much of the things I don't know a whole lot about.
That's a golden rule to be held. For your friend to do all this research, it's weird he didn't learn more about bitcoin. If he wants to educate himself, fine - or otherwise, he should just stick to selling servers.
BTW - what IT professionals taking security and privacy concerns seriously actually uses Facebook ?
One thing I find stupid is people holding beliefs that are just kind of made up just to fit their world view. If I wanted to talk extensively about anything, I sure as hell would make sure I knew A LOT about it, and did my research first. As it is, there's a few things I know a whole lot about, and many things I don't know a whole lot about. I don't speak much of the things I don't know a whole lot about.
That's a golden rule to be held. For your friend to do all this research, it's weird he didn't learn more about bitcoin. If he wants to educate himself, fine - or otherwise, he should just stick to selling servers.
BTW - what IT professionals taking security and privacy concerns seriously actually uses Facebook ?
He is so wrong that I suspect he actually have some kind of brain damage.
1. His dual Xeons are uttermost crap. SSD and 128GB RAM are not even beneficial for CPU mining, where speed not size matters. Almost all servers have ECC memory that have additional latency compared to hardcore enthusiast memory.
2. MtGox actually stands for MtGoatse. All this Magic The Gathering Online Exchange is just elaborate way to mask the true origins of MtGox. Just think about it - who will create such nonsense name as "magic the gathering online exchange".
Most server admins are actually this stupid. Because when people pass their 30-ties they start to degrade, their brains stop to learn and they are stuck in past. No surprise that 17 year olds are pwning servers run by large corporations and oldfart admins receiving salaries with 4 digits.
1. His dual Xeons are uttermost crap. SSD and 128GB RAM are not even beneficial for CPU mining, where speed not size matters. Almost all servers have ECC memory that have additional latency compared to hardcore enthusiast memory.
2. MtGox actually stands for MtGoatse. All this Magic The Gathering Online Exchange is just elaborate way to mask the true origins of MtGox. Just think about it - who will create such nonsense name as "magic the gathering online exchange".
Most server admins are actually this stupid. Because when people pass their 30-ties they start to degrade, their brains stop to learn and they are stuck in past. No surprise that 17 year olds are pwning servers run by large corporations and oldfart admins receiving salaries with 4 digits.
These are the sorts of statements that give one confidence that the price of bitcoin has a lot of room to go up.
(apologies in advance if you think this post belongs in the speculation thread...)
(apologies in advance if you think this post belongs in the speculation thread...)
He posted a full article's length of information on Facebook? Sure.
I agree with the sentiment that you are just trying to make it look like you have a friend.
I agree with the sentiment that you are just trying to make it look like you have a friend.
Way to leave the address bar in that pic.
So now the trolls are gonna be after https://www.facebook.com/chris.sullivan.33821
and you've given yourself up as https://www.facebook.com/tpmeredith
-Bitcoin, only as anonymous as you make it
This one has served me well in the time I've spent learning about BTC:
Quote from: Socrates
I know that I know nothing
Heh, I was a Software Engineer for 25 years. I've had any number of arguements/discussions with our IT types. They forget that just because they run the department that administers our computers, it doesn't make them Computer Scientists or Engineers. Don't get me wrong, some do know their stuff and can be miracle workers, but others...
He posted a full article's length of information on Facebook? Sure.
I agree with the sentiment that you are just trying to make it look like you have a friend.
I agree with the sentiment that you are just trying to make it look like you have a friend.
Think... create a small hadoop cluster with Intel 320s, dual 2667s and 128gb of ram... you would deplete the BitCoin 21m coins in the matter of hours.
The block rate is so small and being you could crunch millions of blocks in a second, that rate would literally be over 8000 coins a minute.
The block rate is so small and being you could crunch millions of blocks in a second, that rate would literally be over 8000 coins a minute.
I wouldn't call that a small cluster. The current nethash rate is what, around to 100TH/s mark (roughly speaking), giving 25 coiins every 600 seconds. So for 8000 coins per second you'd need 19 ExaHash/sec I reckon. Some cluster that. A million of the #1 supercomputer might just about do it. And anyway, once 2016 blocks (50400 coins) are mined the difficulty adjusts and the rate is back to
Am I right? Just a very recently ex-noob looking for enlightenment.
[Edit] Oops, so I get my 8000 coins per minute mixed up with per second. but its still a thousand hypercomputer cluster, yes? And no I didn't work out how many hashes a 20 PetaFlop machine can actually do, so its all a bit of a guess, but somewhere in the ballpark? Perhaps I should quit the math after all
Loads of proven scams and thefts of BTC with no-one to complain to or any way of seeking redress.
This one is a lie. You can take them to court if you wish and prove your case.
Scams happen all over the internet, you need to be vigilant.
Entire BTC universe was created and is being modified by a tiny unelected unaccountable body.
What universe? Bitcoin is just a protocol.
Small savings for merchants (I pay around 2% on Visa/MC in my businesses and BTC requires some fees)
People generally don't hand over their card details to smaller merchants on the internet (eBay seller for eg). PayPal charges 3.9% + $0.30 for each transaction and eBay charges up to another 10%. If you sell someone something for a dollar on ebay, you will receive $0.66 into your PayPal account + owe eBay around $0.10, so you'll get half your money. With BTC you'll get the entire dollar, but the buyer might have to pay a tiny fee.
No chargebacks mean I will never personally risk buying anything using BTC vs using a Visa/MCard/Amex - no price difference as a buyer, but I lose all protectionsagainst fraud or bad goods.
You don't have to risk anything if you use a 2 of 3 escrow payment.
Price fluctuations vs Fiat mean unless you exist only in a BTC world the risk on fluctuations through the course of a transaction vastly exceeds the benefit of a small cost-saving in most cases.
The reason for this is MtGox. To put it simply, they suck.
You need to give it time, back in the early days people would have to spread their BTC buying over the course of weeks as the exchanges didn't have the liquidity and they would loose too much due to slippage.
Once we have properly designed currency exchanges with decent volume & liquidity this will no longer be an issue.
Don't forget that almost all flows of BTC to date have been either speculative or gambling
What about Silk Road? What about BitMit? What about BitcoinStore? What about namecheap? What about Wordpress? What about 4chan? What about Reddit?
(SD is >50% of all BTC spend in history).
Not of all spends, but of all transactions as SDice makes 2 transactions for every single bet. And 90% of SDice transaction are automated plays by bots.
If IT folks would spend half as much of their time learning about Bitcoin as trashing it, they would have a better understanding. Posts like these just confirm my opinion that most IT (present company excepted) have tunnel-vision and limited intelligence.
I hate to tell you this, but your IT friend is just trolling you
Nah I was actually trolling him yesterday and he got mad and made this entire post. Yesterday's conversation was when he let loose his idea that the entire BTC network is data mining and selling information to marketing firms. I was kindve egging him on yesterday so he got mad and made this post today.
There is a type of person (I know many of this type, don't know why) that (1) is a complete idiot, (2) is unwilling to learn anything from others, and (3) will insist he is right about everything all the time - even when presented with clear evidence that he is not.
There are surprisingly many of this type around, and in my experience a lot of them are actually in IT. There is probably some kind of psychological profile for this, but I digress. It can be frustrating to be around this type of person, but it makes for a hell of a wind-up!
This whole story is very hard to believe. Especially the claim that you have friends.
Trolling a suspected troll is probably not optimal, unless you're tag-team trolling of course.
Which begs the question - why am I replying to this?
I wondered about the "I have this friend" intro also, but decided to give the benefit of the doubt.
This thread is both a troll-bait classic and at the same time a refreshing gambit for a newbie.
My virtual popcorn is in hand.
It's interesting that he tries to demonize BTC by trying to demonize Gox through telling us things we already know (Magic the Gathering Online Xchange being one teensy hint). Does he not realize that the BTC community itself is generally uncomfortable with Gox?
He's trying... very trying.
But why? Why is he on this noble crusade to bash BTC? You know the guy - what's he up to?
He's trying... very trying.
But why? Why is he on this noble crusade to bash BTC? You know the guy - what's he up to?
I dunno, he made up his mind that its a ponzi scheme and does not want to admit the possibility of him being wrong.
Thanks. Another IT guy offered a similar "Ponzi" talking point in a dirtspace conversation a couple of weeks ago. I remember being startled and wondering where the meme was coming from. I still haven't found a source, so probably it's just coincidence. Please post though if you find your friend is using some specific source of "Ponzi" talking points.
As for your friend - any chance he tried daytrading BTC as a "game" and got clobbered when the price fell in April? Is it a "sour grapes" thing of some kind? People usually don't get passionate about stuff unless they have/had something at stake. His intensity seems too strong for a casual observer.
This whole story is very hard to believe. Especially the claim that you have friends.
As for the value of Bitcoin.
- For merchants and consumers, lower txnfees
- For merchants, no chargebacks
- For consumers, nobody able to stop you from spending your money. (your bitcoin addresses cannot be frozen)
- Instantly send money across the world. (international wire-transfers take at least 2 business days)
- No possibility to create new money out of thin air (like the banks are doing now) (see the white paper (pdf) for more details)
And beyond that, the market will decide what its worth (currently around $120 per bitcoin)
- For merchants and consumers, lower txnfees
- For merchants, no chargebacks
- For consumers, nobody able to stop you from spending your money. (your bitcoin addresses cannot be frozen)
- Instantly send money across the world. (international wire-transfers take at least 2 business days)
- No possibility to create new money out of thin air (like the banks are doing now) (see the white paper (pdf) for more details)
And beyond that, the market will decide what its worth
(currently around $120 per bitcoin)You might want to add some balance to that:
Downsides:
Loads of proven scams and thefts of BTC with no-one to complain to or any way of seeking redress.
Entire BTC universe was created and is being modified by a tiny unelected unaccountable body.
Small savings for merchants (I pay around 2% on Visa/MC in my businesses and BTC requires some fees)
No chargebacks mean I will never personally risk buying anything using BTC vs using a Visa/MCard/Amex - no price difference as a buyer, but I lose all protectionsagainst fraud or bad goods.
Price fluctuations vs Fiat mean unless you exist only in a BTC world the risk on fluctuations through the course of a transaction vastly exceeds the benefit of a small cost-saving in most cases.
Don't forget that almost all flows of BTC to date have been either speculative or gambling (SD is >50% of all BTC spend in history).
I hate to tell you this, but your IT friend is just trolling you
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